National Constitution Center - Centuries of Citizenship - Map: States grant women the right to vote You are viewing the low-bandwidth version of the Constitutional Timeline. View the broadband version . 1907-1930: We are a diverse nation, confronting our differences January 1, 1919 Map: States grant women the right to vote While seeking to amend the U.S. Constitution, the women’s suffrage movement also waged a state-by-state campaign. The territory of Wyoming was the first to give women the vote in 1869. Other western states and territories followed. States granting women the right to vote prior to the 19th Amendment: Wyoming 1890 Women's Suffrage Timeline State by State Women's Suffrage Timeline State by State Women's Suffrage Timeline State by State American Woman Suffrage Timeline By Jone Johnson Lewis Updated October 01, 2016. Women won the vote in the United States through a constitutional amendment, finally ratified in 1920. But along the road to winning the vote nationally, states and localities granted suffrage to women within their jurisdictions. This list documents many of those milestones in winning the vote for American women.

Timeline below: 1776 New Jersey gives the vote to women owning more than $250. Later the state reconsidered and women were no longer allowed to vote. ( more ) 1837 Kentucky gives some women suffrage in school elections. 1861 Kansas enters the Union; the new state gives its women the right to vote in local school elections. 1869 Wyoming territory constitution grants women the right to vote and to hold public office. 1870 Utah territory gives full suffrage to women. 1893 The male electorate in Colorado votes "yes" on woman suffrage. 1894 Some cities in Kentucky and Ohio give women the vote in school board elections. 1895 Utah amends its constitution to grant women suffrage. 1896 Idaho adopts a constitutional amendment granting suffrage to women. 1902 Kentucky repeals limited school board election voting rights for women. 1910 Washington state votes for woman suffrage. 1911 California gives women the vote. 1912 Male electorates in Kansas, Oregon and Arizona approve state constitutional amendments for woman suffrage. Wisconsin and Michigan defeat proposed suffrage amendments.

1912 Kentucky restores limited voting rights for women in school board elections. 1913 Illinois grants the right to vote to women, the first state east of the Mississippi to do so. 1920 On August 26, a constitutional amendment is adopted when Tennessee ratifies it, granting full woman suffrage in all states of the United States. ( more ) 1929 Puerto Rico's legislature grants women the right to vote, pushed by the United States Congress to do so. 1971 19th Amendment - Women’s History - HISTORY.com Google Origins of Women’s Suffrage in the U.S. During America’s early history as a nation, women were denied some of the key rights enjoyed by male citizens. For example, married women couldn’t own property and had no legal claim to any money they might earn, and no female had the right to vote. Women were expected to focus on housework and motherhood, not politics. Did You Know? Wyoming, the first state to grant voting rights to women, was also the first state to elect a female governor.

Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876-1977) was elected governor of the Equality State (Wyoming's official nickname) in 1924. From 1933 to 1953, she served as the first female director of the U.S. Mint. The campaign for woman suffrage did not begin in earnest in the decades before the Civil War. During the 1820s and 1830s, various reform groups proliferated across the U.S.—temperance clubs, religious movements and moral-reform societies, anti-slavery organizations—and in a number of these, women played a prominent role. Meanwhile, many American women were beginning to chafe against what historians have called the “Cult of True Womanhood”; that is, the idea that the only “true” woman was a pious, submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family. Put together, these factors contributed to a new way of thinking about what it meant to be a woman and a citizen in the United States. Suffrage Movement Gets Organized It was not until 1848 that the movement for women’s rights began to organize at the national level.

In July of that year, reformers Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the first women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York (where Stanton lived). More than 300 people—mostly women, but also some men—attended, including former African-American slave and activist Frederick Douglass (1818-95). In addition to their belief that women should be afforded better opportunities for education and employment, most of the Seneca Falls delegates agreed that American women were autonomous individuals who deserved their own political identities. A group of delegates led by Stanton produced a “Declaration of Sentiments” document, modeled after the Declaration of Independence , which stated: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” What this meant, among other things, was that the delegates believed women should have the right to vote. Following the convention, the idea of voting rights for women was mocked in the press and some delegates withdrew their support for the Declaration of Sentiments.

However, Stanton and Mott persisted–they went on to spearhead additional women’s rights conferences and they were eventually joined in their advocacy work by Susan B. Anthony and other activists. National Suffrage Groups Established With the onset of the American Civil War (1861-65), the suffrage movement lost some momentum, as many women turned their attention to assisting in efforts related to the conflict between the states. After the war, woman suffrage endured another setback, when the women’s rights movement found itself divided over the issue of voting rights for black men. Stanton and some other suffrage leaders objected to the proposed 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would give black men the right to vote, but failed to extend the same privilege to American women of any skin color. In 1869, Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) with their eyes on a federal constitutional amendment that would grant women the right to vote.

That same year, abolitionists Lucy Stone (1818-93) and Henry Blackwell (1825-1909) founded the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA); the group’s leaders supported the 15th Amendment and feared it would not pass if it included voting rights for women. (The 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870.) The AWSA believed women’s enfranchisement could best be gained through amendments to individual state constitutions. Despite the divisions between the two organizations, there was a victory for voting rights in 1869 when the Wyoming Territory granted all female residents age 21 and older the right to vote. (When Wyoming was admitted to the Union in 1890, woman suffrage remained part of the state constitution.) By 1878, the NWSA and the collective suffrage movement had gathered enough influence to lobby the U.S. Congress for a constitutional amendment. Congress responded by forming committees in the House and Senate to study and debate the issue. However, when the proposal finally reached the Senate floor in 1886, it was defeated.

In 1890, the NWSA and the AWSA merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). The new organization’s strategy was to lobby for women’s voting rights on a state-by-state basis. Within six years, Colorado , Utah and Idaho adopted amendments to their state constitutions granting women the right to vote. In 1900, with Stanton and Anthony advancing in age, Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947) stepped up to lead the NASWA. Progress and Civil Disobedience The turn of the 20th century brought momentum to the woman suffrage cause. Although the deaths of Stanton in 1902 and Anthony in 1906 appeared to be setbacks, the NASWA under the leadership of Catt achieved rolling successes for women’s enfranchisement at state levels. Between 1910 and 1918, the Alaska Territory, Arizona , Arkansas , California , Illinois , Indiana , Kansas, Michigan , Montana , Nebraska , Nevada , New York, North Dakota , Oklahoma , Oregon , South Dakota and Washington all extended voting rights to women.

Also during this time, through the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women (later, the Women’s Political Union), Stanton’s daughter Harriot Stanton Blatch (1856-1940) introduced parades, pickets and marches as means of calling attention to the cause. These tactics succeeded in raising awareness and led to unrest in Washington, D.C. On the eve of the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) in 1913, protesters thronged a massive suffrage parade in the nation’s capital, and hundreds of women were injured. That same year, Alice Paul (1885-1977) founded the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, which later became the National Woman’s Party. The organization staged numerous demonstrations and regularly picketed the White House, among other militant tactics. As a result of these actions, some group members were arrested and served jail time. In 1918, President Wilson switched his stand on women’s voting rights from objection to support through the influence of Catt, who had a less-combative style than Paul.

Wilson also tied the proposed suffrage amendment to America’s involvement in World War I (1914-18) and the increased role women had played in the war efforts. When the amendment came up for vote, Wilson addressed the Senate in favor of suffrage. As reported in The New York Times on October 1, 1918, Wilson said, “I regard the extension of suffrage to women as vitally essential to the successful prosecution of the great war of humanity in which we are engaged.” However, despite Wilson’s newfound support, the amendment proposal failed in the Senate by two votes. Another year passed before Congress took up the measure again. Getting the Vote On May 21, 1919, U.S. Representative James R. Mann (1856-1922), a Republican from Illinois and chairman of the Suffrage Committee, proposed the House resolution to approve the Susan Anthony Amendment granting women the right to vote. The measure passed the House 304-89—a full 42 votes above the required two-thirds majority.

Two weeks later, on June 4, 1919, the Senate passed the 19th Amendment by two votes over its two-thirds required majority, 56-25. The amendment was then sent to the states for ratification. Within six days of the ratification cycle, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin each ratified the amendment. Kansas , New York and Ohio followed on June 16, 1919. By March of the following year, a total of 35 states had approved the amendment, one state shy of the two-thirds required for ratification. Southern states were adamantly opposed to the amendment, however, and seven of them— Alabama , Georgia , Louisiana , Maryland , Mississippi , South Carolina and Virginia—had already rejected it before Tennessee’s vote on August 18, 1920. It was up to Tennessee to tip the scale for woman suffrage. The outlook appeared bleak, given the outcomes in other Southern states and given the position of Tennessee’s state legislators in their 48-48 tie. The state’s decision came down to 23-year-old Representative Harry T.

Burn (1895-1977), a Republican from McMinn County, to cast the deciding vote. Although Burn opposed the amendment, his mother convinced him to approve it. (Mrs. Burn reportedly wrote to her son: “Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the ‘rat’ in ratification.”) With Burn’s vote, the 19th Amendment was ratified. Certification by U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby (1869-1950) followed on August 26, 1920. On November 2 of that same year, more than 8 million women across the U.S. voted in elections for the first time. It took over 60 years for the remaining 12 states to ratify the 19th Amendment. Mississippi was the last to do so, on March 22, 1984.

Tags Wyoming legislators write the first state constitution to grant women the vote - Sep 30, 1889 - HISTORY.com Wyoming legislators write the first state constitution to grant women the vote Share this: Wyoming legislators write the first state constitution to grant women the vote Author Wyoming legislators write the first state constitution to grant women the vote URL Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 1889, the Wyoming state convention approves a constitution that includes a provision granting women the right to vote. Formally admitted into the union the following year, Wyoming thus became the first state in the history of the nation to allow its female citizens to vote. That the isolated western state of Wyoming should be the first to accept women’s suffrage was a surprise. Leading suffragists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were Easterners, and they assumed that their own more progressive home states would be among the first to respond to the campaign for women’s suffrage. Yet the people and politicians of the growing number of new Western states proved far more supportive than those in the East. In 1848, the legislature in Washington Territory became the first to introduce a women’s suffrage bill.

Though the Washington bill was narrowly defeated, similar legislation succeeded elsewhere, and Wyoming Territory was the first to give women the vote in 1869, quickly followed by Utah Territory (1870) and Washington Territory (1883). As with Wyoming, when these territories became states they preserved women’s suffrage. By 1914, the contrast between East and West had become striking. All of the states west of the Rockies had women’s suffrage, while no state did east of the Rockies, except Kansas. Why the regional distinction? Some historians suggest western men may have been rewarding pioneer women for their critical role in settling the West. Others argue the West had a more egalitarian spirit, or that the scarcity of women in some western regions made men more appreciative of the women who were there while hoping the vote might attract more. Whatever the reasons, while the Old West is usually thought of as a man’s world, a wild land that was “no place for a woman,” Westerners proved far more willing than other Americans to create states where women were welcomed as full and equal citizens. Related Videos Women's Suffrage: Why the West First? | EDSITEment Women's Suffrage: Why the West First?

Tools Introduction Women's Suffrage Cartoon = personification of Votes for Women Credit: 1915 cartoon by Hy Mayer Public domain image, originally published in Puck, February 20, 1915 - courtesy Library of Congress Women's suffrage succeeded in the West for reasons as diverse as the people and places of the West itself. —From This Shall Be the Land for Women on the EDSITEment resource Women of the West Museum The 19th Amendment, granting suffrage to women, was approved by Congress in 1920. It was over fifty years previously, however, that Wyoming had entered the Union as the first state to grant women full voting rights. The next eight states to grant full suffrage to women were also Western states: Colorado (1893); Utah and Idaho (1896); Washington (1910); California (1911); and Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona (1912). Why was the West first? Can students explain with a unified theory why Western states anticipated the rest of the nation by so many years on this issue?

Or did "women's suffrage succeed… in the West for reasons as diverse as the people and places of the West itself?" Focused on efforts in support of women's suffrage in Western states, this lesson can be used either as a stand-alone unit or as a more specialized sequel to the EDSITEment lesson, Voting Rights for Women: Pro- and Anti-Suffrage , which covers the suffrage movement in general. The latter lesson also contains activities and resources for learning how the movement to gain the vote for women fits into the larger struggle for women's rights in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Guiding Questions Why were the Western states the first in the nation to grant full voting rights for women? Learning Objectives After completing the lessons in this unit, students will be able to Discuss the particulars in the granting of full voting rights to women in several Western states List some women especially involved in the Western suffrage movement and supply some important facts from their biographies Take a stand, supported by historical evidence, as to whether or not a single theory can explain why the Western states were the first to grant full voting rights to women. Preparation Instructions Review the lesson plan. Locate and bookmark suggested materials and other useful websites.

Download and print out documents you will use and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing. Download the Worksheet: Why the West First? , available here as a PDF. Print out and make an appropriate number of copies of any handouts you plan to use in class. Voting Rights for Women: Pro- and Anti-Suffrage : You can use this complementary EDSITEment lesson, which describes the overall women's suffrage movement, to help students understand how the Western suffrage movement fits within the larger struggle for women's voting rights. This lesson also contains resources and activities illustrating how the movement to gain the vote for women fits into the larger struggle for women's rights in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Because of the importance and scope of the Women's Rights Movement, EDSITEment offers three companion lessons designed to supplement your classroom curriculum through organized access to archival materials: Who Were the Foremothers of Women's Equality? : Students encounter major figures in the woman's rights movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries in important documents and other primary and secondary materials.

The first activity in particular familiarizes students with the formative goals of the movement as voiced in Elizabeth Cady Stanton's 1848 "Declaration of Sentiments." Women's Equality: Changing Attitudes and Beliefs : Students analyze archival cartoons, posters, magazine humor, newspaper articles and poems that reflect the deeply entrenched attitudes and beliefs the early crusaders for women's rights had to overcome. For background on suffrage in the West, consult the following resources: This Shall Be the Land for Women: The Struggle for Western Women's Suffrage , an introduction to an online exhibit, and Voting Rights in America , a timeline with an emphasis on the West, on the EDSITEment-reviewed website Women of the West Museum The interactive Map: Woman Suffrage (on Women in American History , an online exhibit of Britannica.com , a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website Internet Public Library ), an option in Part 3 requires the Shockwave plug-in. If you plan to use the map, take a moment to see how it works. For further reading, consult the Recommended Reading List provided here as a PDF. Lesson Activities Activity 7. Developing a Theory Activity 1. Why Suffrage Started in the West: What Made the Difference?

Establish an anticipatory set by sharing with the class the list Suffrage Firsts , available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website Women of the West Museum . If possible, allow students to view the online interactive map Map: Woman Suffrage on Women in American History , an online exhibit of Britannica.com , a link from the EDSITEment resource Internet Public Library . It demonstrates quite dramatically the progress of full voting rights for women. Another option is to share the timeline Voting Rights in America on the EDSITEment-reviewed website Women of the West Museum . Do students have any theories about why women would achieve the vote in the West first? Distribute to students the poll "How the West Was First: Why Did Suffrage Succeed?", on page 1 of the PDF which lists a number of possible hypotheses. Students can complete the poll independently or the teacher can lead the class through it. Which reasons were most frequently cited by students as the most likely theories? Activity 2. East Meets West Share with your students the following texts illustrating connections between suffrage movements in the West and those in the Northeast: Susan B. Anthony campaigned vigorously in the West, giving many lectures. The following excerpt from Albina L.

Washburne, "Annual Meeting, American Woman Suffrage Association: Colorado Report," Woman's Journal, 7 (October 7, 1876), pp. 327, 328 , available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website Women and Social Movements in the United States , indicates some of the cooperation that took place. The introduction to the excerpt explains: The Colorado Woman Suffrage Association, founded in 1876, gave organizational shape to suffrage sentiment in the state. The state association affiliated with the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), one of two national organizations dedicated to achieving votes for women. The AWSA, which began in November 1869, sought to pass state laws granting women the right to vote, making it the logical affiliation for the Colorado Woman Suffrage Association.

The essay The History of the Suffrage Movement , from PBS's Not For Ourselves Alone , a link from the EDSITEment resource New Perspectives on the West , offers this additional background information: American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was led by Lucy Stone with the aid of her husband Henry Blackwell, Mary Livermore, Julia Ward Howe, Henry Ward Beecher, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Thomas Wentworth Higginson and others; it endorsed the Fifteenth Amendment while working for woman suffrage as well. You may also wish to share this excerpt from Washburne's 1876 report with students: Previous to last year there had been very little agitation on the subject of Woman Suffrage in Colorado, and a few of us waiting ones were glad to receive a visit from Mrs. Margaret W. Campbell, of Massachusetts, a tried friend and worker in the Suffrage cause, who arrived in Colorado about the middle of November, 1875. Anxious to avail ourselves of her valuable assistance we Suffragists, then scattered and unknown to each other, gave her a warm welcome and proceeded to agitate a little, and feel the public pulse. Mrs.

Campbell lectured in nearly all the principle towns of Colorado, finding many interested, and devoting herself untiringly to presenting the claims of Woman to legal rights, to the popular comprehension, when a call was made for a Convention of the friends to be held at Denver, January 10th, 1876, which was responded to by a few from a distance, and others more numerous from the city. Four sessions were held, an organization effected of the Colorado Woman Suffrage Association… How did the movement in Colorado benefit from this contact with an activist from the Northeast? Activity 3. Did the Land Make the Difference? Share with the class the Introduction to the West on the EDSITEment-reviewed PBS website New Perspectives on the West . It introduces the landscape, myth, and history of the West. What attracted people to the American West? What experiences of the West do your students have (from watching Western movies or visiting the Grand Canyon, for example)? What values have become associated with the exploration and settlement of the vast landscapes of the West? Does the myth of the West, as discussed in "Introduction to the West," help explain why women achieved full voting rights there first?

To help students explore this question, briefly share some or all of the following images from the EDSITEment resource American Memory that exemplify the myth of the West. As you show the images, ask students to jot down one to three words they associate with each. Discuss each image briefly and allow students to add a word or two: The "Unsinkable" Molly Brown and Family Ask students, now working in small groups, to share their lists and then attempt to come up with a statement describing the myth of the West that uses some of the list words, and especially those that were repeated. Reconvene in a whole-class setting and share descriptions. If desired, choose one group's definition (or use ideas from various groups) to stand as a class statement on the nature of the myth. Are there aspects of this myth that help explain why women got full voting rights in the West first? On the other hand, are there aspects of the myth that seem to contradict the fact that women's suffrage came to the West first? Activity 4. Did the Settlers Make the Difference? Who came to the West and why? In this activity, students explore the various motivations of those who migrated to the American West.

Might the motivations of those who migrated to the West help us to understand the region's early granting of voting rights to women? As you share the following with the class, ask students to invent a character (who, for example, could be in a realistic historical fiction work about the settling of the West) inspired by the materials presented. Every character should have a name, age, reason for coming West, a home place, and a brief story to tell about him or herself: One Reason They Came—The Homestead Act Homestead Act (One sentence—albeit a very long one—beginning with "Be it enacted."), on the EDSITEment-reviewed PBS website New Perspectives on the West The Homestead Act—Background Information , on the EDSITEment resource American Memory Another Reason They Came—Aggressive advertising by railroads in the interest of having people living along the routes and to profit from selling land. Poster: Farms and Homes in Kansas! Emigrants, Look to your interests , from the Union Pacific Photo Gallery , available via a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website Internet Public Library . Note that the seller is the Union Pacific Railroad, and that the land being sold formerly belonged to Native Americans (Kickapoo Indian Reservation).

Some Information on Who Came How Do You Like Nebraska? , on the EDSITEment-reviewed PBS website New Perspectives on the West When you are finished reviewing the material, have each student—in character—share the basic information about him or herself. Then ask the "character" to state an opinion about voting rights for women. Students should be ready, if asked, to provide evidence--either details from a character's story or reasoning and inference--supporting the likelihood that their character would hold such an opinion. As a class, discuss and collate the results of presentations of individual characters. Discuss the central question of whether women won voting rights in the West because of the nature of those who wanted to migrate to that region. (Be alert not only to details that seem to support the region's openness to women's suffrage, but also to details that make the early granting of the vote to women seem surprising.) Activity 5. Did the Women of the West Make the Difference? Is the answer connected to the nature and experiences and characters of the women who came to the West? In this activity, students—working individually or in pairs—will learn about a pioneer woman and compose a free verse poem that highlights the details of her life.

As a model, share with students the poem "Lucinda Matlock" by Edgar Lee Masters , available on the EDSITEment resource The Academy of American Poets . Though not about a pioneer woman of the West, this poem gives the details of an entire life history in a few lines. Read the poem aloud in class. After the first reading, ask students what "jumped out at them" from the poem. Now distribute copies of the poem to students and have a volunteer give a second reading. After the reading, ask students to point out concrete details from the life of Lucinda Matlock. Point out to students that the poem does not rhyme—a key characteristic of free verse. Now assign subjects to students from the following list or other sources: Esther Hobart Morris: First Female Justice of the Peace (Wyoming) Students should compose poems from what they learn about their subject. When students have finished writing, conduct a classroom reading of the poems. Having heard all of them, students should identify any commonalities that exist among these women. Can their personalities and experiences explain why women in the West were the first to be granted full voting rights? Activity 6. Did the Western States have Unique Situations that Promoted Suffrage?

Share the following graphics regarding suffrage movements in three states, available on the EDSITEment resource Women of the West Museum : Wyoming Photograph Do these graphics give the impression that the motivations behind the various suffrage movements were similar or different? Students will explore this question working in small groups to research eight of the first nine suffrage states. Divide the class into eight groups. Students should use the following articles and graphics from the EDSITEment-reviewed website Women of the West Museum , as well as other available classroom and/or library resources, to research eight Western states. (NOTE: Click on the state name for a summary article. Additional links to graphics and biographies are provided in each article.) Wyoming (Suffrage in 1890) Women's Suffrage in Utah Women's Suffrage in Utah Jean Bickmore White Utah History Encyclopedia Women's Suffrage--the right of women to vote--was won twice in Utah. It was granted first in 1870 by the territorial legislature but revoked by Congress in 1887 as part of a national effort to rid the territory of polygamy.

It was restored in 1895, when the right to vote and hold office was written into the constitution of the new state. Susan B. Anthony with suffrage leaders from Utah and elsewhere. In sharp contrast to the long fight for women's suffrage nationally, the vote came to Utah women in 1870 without any effort on their part. It had been promoted by a group of men who had left the Mormon church, the Godbeites, in their Utah Magazine, but to no immediate effect. At the same time, an unsuccessful effort to gain the vote for women in Utah territory had been launched in the East by antipolygamy forces; they were convinced that Utah women would vote to end plural marriage if given the chance. Brigham Young and others realized that giving Utah women the vote would not mean the end of polygamy, but it could change the predominant national image of Utah women as downtrodden and oppressed and could help to stem a tide of antipolygamy legislation by Congress. With no dissenting votes, the territorial legislature passed an act giving the vote (but not the right to hold office) to women on 10 February 1869.

The act was signed two days later by the acting governor, S. A. Mann, and on 14 February, the first woman voter in the municipal election reportedly was Sarah Young, grandniece of Brigham Young. Utah thus became the second territory to give the vote to women; Wyoming had passed a women's suffrage act in 1869. No states permitted women to vote at the time. Despite efforts of national suffrage leaders to protect the vote for Utah women from congressional action, it was taken away by the Edmunds-Tucker antipolygamy act in 1887. It was clear that a strong organizing effort would be needed to restore it. Utah women, both Mormon and non-Mormon, had become active in the National Woman Suffrage Association, but were divided over the suffrage issue within Utah. Many non-Mormon suffragists supported the principle of universal suffrage but held that granting the vote to Utah women would only strengthen the political power of the Mormon Church. Suffrage leaders Emily Richards, Sarah Kimball, and Pheobe Beatie In 1888 Emily S. Richards, wife of the Mormon church attorney, Franklin S.

Richards, approached church officials with a proposal to form a Utah suffrage association affiliated with the National Woman Suffrage Association. With church approval, the territorial association was formed on 10 January 1889 with leading roles given to women who were not involved in polygamous marriages. Margaret N. Caine, wife of Delegate to Congress John T. Caine, was the president and Emily Richards was appointed a state organizer. Acting quickly, Mrs. Richards organized local units throughout the territory. Many, if not all of them, sprang from the women's auxiliary organizations of the church, most notably the Relief Society. The Woman's Exponent, an unofficial publication for Mormon women, took up the cause with zeal. Yet progress was stalled until the 1890 Manifesto officially declared an end to plural marriage, and Congress passed the 1894 Enabling Act, opening the door to statehood. With statehood in sight, the women swung into action, resolved that the right to vote and hold office would be put into the new constitution.

They managed to get planks favoring women's suffrage into both Democratic and Republican party platforms in 1894 but realized that more grassroots organizations must be formed to apply political pressure to the 107 male delegates elected to the Constitutional Convention. By mid-February of 1895, nineteen of Utah's twenty-seven counties had suffrage organizations. Most of the delegates were inclined to vote for the enfranchisement of women; but there were those, including the influential Brigham H. Roberts, member of the church's First Council of Seventy, who felt otherwise. The final struggle for suffrage began with the convening of Utah's constitutional convention in March of 1895. In lengthy debates, Roberts and other opponents expressed fears that if women's suffrage became part of the new constitution it would not be accepted by Congress. Some non-Mormon delegates feared that Utah women would be used as pawns by their husbands and church leaders to threaten the rights of the non-Mormon minority. Others argued that women's traditional roles as wife and mother were threatened and that women were too good to get into the dirty mire of politics.

Proponents ridiculed these arguments, contending that women should be given the vote as a matter of simple justice and that they would be a purifying and cleansing force in politics. Despite a move to put the matter to a separate vote, supporters of women's suffrage managed to get it written into the new Utah Constitution by a comfortable majority. The new document was adopted on 5 November 1895 with a provision that "the rights of citizens of the State of Utah to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex. Both male and female citizens of this state shall enjoy equally all civil, political and religious rights and privileges." Utah women probably succeeded in 1895 where women elsewhere had failed because their efforts were approved by leaders of the main political force in the state--the Mormon church. Leading suffragists, in addition to Margaret Caine and Emily Richards, included relatives and friends of church leaders: Emmeline B. Wells, editor of the Exponent; Zina D. H. Young, wife of Brigham Young; Jane Richards, wife of Apostle Franklin D. Richards; and Sarah M. Kimball, among many others. They could not be dismissed as fire-eating radicals.

They were highly skilled at organizing women and mobilizing political support. They could also point to the period when Utah women had voted--without noticeable harm to themselves or the Territory. Thus they won a right granted at that time only in two states, in a struggle unique to Utah in its entanglement with the issues of polygamy and statehood. See: Beverly Beeton, Women Vote in the West: The Woman Suffrage Movement 1869-1896 (1986); Elizabeth Cady Stanton, et al, eds., History of Woman Suffrage (reprint 1969); Jean Bickmore White, "Woman's Place Is in the Constitution: The Struggle for Equal Rights in Utah in 1895," Utah Historical Quarterly 42 (Fall 1974); Thomas G. Alexander, "An Experiment in Progressive Legislation: The Granting of Woman Suffrage in Utah in 1870," Utah Historical Quarterly 38 (Winter 1970). The Nineteenth Amendment Women's Fight for the Vote: The Nineteenth Amendment The issues: Should the 14th Amendment be interpreted as guaranteeing to women the right to vote?

How did women finally win the right to vote? Introduction The beginning of the fight for women suffrage is usually traced to the "Declaration of Sentiments" produced at the first woman's rights convention in Seneca Falls, N. Y. in 1848. Four years later, at the Woman's Rights Convention in Syracuse in 1852, Susan B. Anthony joined the fight, arguing that "the right women needed above every other...was the right of suffrage." During debates on the Reconstruction Amendments which extended the vote to ex-slaves (through the 15th Amendment), suffragists pushed hard for "universal suffrage," but they never had a chance. In 1872, a suffragists brought a series of court challenges designed to test whether voting was a "privilege" of "U. S. citizenship" now belonging to women by virtue of the recently adopted 14th Amendment. One such challenge grew out of a criminal prosecution of Susan B. Anthony for illegally voting in the 1872 election. The first case to make its way to the Supreme Court, however, was Minor vs Happersett (1875).

In Minor, a unanimous Court rejected the argument that either the privileges and immunities clause or the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment extended the vote to women. Following Minor, suffragists turned their attention from the courts to the states and to Congress. In 1878, a constitutional amendment was proposed that provided "The right of citizens to vote shall not be abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." This same amendment would be introduced in every session of Congress for the next 41 years. In July 1890, the Territory of Wyoming, which allowed women to vote, was admitted as a state. Wyoming became the first state with women suffrage. By 1900, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho joined Wyoming in allowing women to vote. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive (Bull Moose) Party became the first national political party to have a plank supporting women suffrage. The tide was beginning to turn. In May, 1919, the necessary two-thirds vote in favor of the women suffrage amendment was finally mustered in Congress, and the proposed amendment was sent to the states for ratification.

By July 1920, with a number of primarily southern states adamantly opposed to the amendment, it all came down to Tennessee. It appeared that the amendment might fail by one vote in the Tennessee house, but twenty-four-year-old Harry Burns surprised observers by casting the deciding vote for ratification. At the time of his vote, Burns had in his pocket a letter he had received from his mother urging him, "Don't forget to be a good boy" and "vote for suffrage." Women had finally won the vote. Right Choice, Wrong Reasons: Wyoming Women Win the Right to Vote | WyoHistory.org Right Choice, Wrong Reasons: Wyoming Women Win the Right to Vote Tom Rea Right Choice, Wrong Reasons: Wyoming Women Win the Right to Vote Thanks to an uneducated Virginian who had no use for black people, Wyoming Territory became the first government in the world to guarantee women the right to vote. No one person could have done such a thing by himself, of course. A territorial legislature, made up entirely of men, had to be persuaded that votes for women were a good idea. The most interesting of all those men may have been the one who introduced the bill.

He was a saloonkeeper from South Pass City, a frontier mining town nearly as big as Cheyenne at the time. William Bright never went to school. Somewhere along the way, he learned to read, write, and do math, though when he was an adult he could never remember quite where or when that was. He grew up in Virginia, a southern state, but served in the Union Army all through the Civil War. After the war, he and his wife, Julia, 21 years younger than he was and reportedly beautiful, moved to Salt Lake City. Gold was discovered in 1867 near where the old Oregon Trail crossed South Pass, and a gold rush started. William Bright moved to South Pass City that summer, hoping, like everyone else in town, to strike it rich. He staked a lot of mining claims, and then made good money selling the claims as more and more miners flocked to the gullies and gulches around South Pass. In the spring of 1868, Julia Bright and their baby son, William Jr. moved from Salt Lake City to join the boy’s father. New rights for ex-slaves That was a presidential election year, and William Bright was a Democrat.

During the Civil War, northern Democrats were uncertain that the killing was worth the cost. Many would have preferred some kind of compromise with the South instead of the pursuit of the fight to the bloody end. After the war, Democrats continued to oppose some of the most important changes the war had brought about. In particular, they opposed full citizenship and voting rights for black people—both the recently freed slaves and northern blacks who had been more or less free already. Congress, controlled by the Republicans, soon passed the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution. The 14th guaranteed that the former slaves would be citizens, protected by the law like anyone else. The 15th Amendment guaranteed that no people could be denied the right to vote based on their color or on the fact that they had once been slaves. These two amendments were soon ratified—that is, approved by the states—and became law. In May 1868, Democrats in South Pass City called a meeting to choose a person to travel to the national Democratic Convention, where the party would choose its candidate for president. William Bright was one of 17 men who signed a notice in the newspaper calling people to come to the meeting.

Only strong Democrats should attend, the notice warned—men who opposed votes for black people and opposed the so-called Radical Republicans who were running Congress. Bright chaired the meeting. That fact gives us a glimpse of his political feelings—and probably his racial ones. The next year, Bright opened a saloon on South Pass City’s busiest corner. By then, the mines were playing out, and the town was shrinking. Bright must have known this, and might have guessed a saloon would not have a prosperous future in a town like that. But running a saloon was a way to become well known in a community made up almost entirely of miners without wives or families. Because being well known helps a lot when a person runs for office, Bright may have been thinking of going into politics. Wyoming’s first legislature In the fall of 1868, the popular Union Army Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, a Republican, was elected president. Not surprisingly, Grant soon appointed Republicans to run the brand-new Wyoming Territory. These included the governor , John Campbell ; Campbell’s second in command, Secretary Edwin Lee; and Attorney General Joseph A. Carey , the top government lawyer in the state. They arrived in May 1869.

Not long afterward, Carey issued an official legal opinion that no one in Wyoming could be denied the right to vote based on race. A territory-wide election was held in early September. Many Democrats saw Carey’s opinion as a move to make sure Wyoming’s black people voted Republican, and they were probably right. But to the Republican Gov. Campbell’s surprise and embarrassment, only Democrats were elected. The territory’s new delegate to Congress was a Democrat, and all 22 members of the new territorial legislature were Democrats, too. One of these was William Bright. The South Pass City saloonkeeper won a seat in the Council, or upper house of the Legislature—essentially a senate. He must have been well liked, because the other councilors elected him president of the Council, which meant he would get to run the meetings and decide which bills got voted on, and when. Women’s rights in the air The Legislature met in October 1869 in Cheyenne. All those Democrats seem to have had it on their mind not to protect black people’s rights, like the Republicans wanted to do, but to protect women’s rights. They passed a resolution allowing women to sit inside the special space where the lawmakers sat.

They passed a law guaranteeing that teachers—most of whom were women—would be paid the same whether they were men or women. And they passed a bill guaranteeing married women property rights separate from their husbands. The idea that women deserved the same rights as men had been growing steadily in the United States since the 1840s. For a long time, many people who supported the abolition of slavery also supported women’s rights. Both feelings were strong in the Republican Party before the Civil War. But after the war, Republicans felt they had to do all they could to make sure the freed slaves got the right to vote and were able to keep it. So, the Republicans put women’s rights on the back burner. Some women were furious about this and felt betrayed by the party. In 1854, meanwhile, the legislature in Washington Territory tried and failed to give women the right to vote. Nebraska Territory did the same in 1856. In Congress, a senator introduced a bill after the Civil War to give women in all the territories the right to vote. This failed, too, as did bills in 1868 that would have amended the U.S.

Constitution to give all women in the United States and territories the right to vote. Early in 1869, Dakota Territory came within one vote of passing a so-called woman suffrage bill. The idea was not new in American politics. Many of Wyoming’s legislators came from states or territories where the question had been discussed often. Bright’s bill Maybe it’s not so surprising, then, that William Bright, fairly late in the legislative session, introduced a bill to give Wyoming women the right to vote. Unfortunately, no record was kept then (or now) of what Wyoming lawmakers actually said while they were debating bills. But what was on Bright’s mind and on the other legislators’ minds can be gleaned from newspaper articles and from people’s memories reported years later. First, lawmakers wanted to get Wyoming some good publicity, so that more settlers would come to the territory. With the railroad built , and the gold mines at South Pass producing less and less gold, it seemed as though more people were leaving than coming in. Positive news stories published throughout the nation, legislators thought, might reverse the trend. The lawmakers especially hoped the news would bring more women. There were six adult men in the Territory for every adult woman, and there were very few children.

American Indians were not counted in these numbers, but Chinese workers—most of whom had come to work on the railroad—and black people were counted. Second, these Democrats in the legislature hoped that once these women came to Wyoming, they would continue to vote for the party that had given them the vote in the first place. Third, the Democrats in the Legislature wanted to make John Campbell, the Republican governor, look bad. If they passed the bill, many assumed, Campbell would veto it. Here he was, their thinking went, a member of the party that supposedly championed the voting rights of the ex-slaves, but given a chance to extend the vote to women he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to do it. The idea was too new, too different. The Democrats enjoyed the possibility of embarrassing him. A racial argument Fourth, many of the legislators believed strongly that if blacks and Chinese were to have the vote, then women—especially white women—should have it, too. The following spring, a Cheyenne newspaper reported this as “the clincher” argument.

“Damn it,” an unnamed legislator supposedly said, “if you are going to let the niggers and the pigtails [the Chinese] vote, we will ring in the women, too.” William Bright, uneducated saloon-keeper, stalwart Democrat, ex-Virginian, Union Army veteran, president of the Council and the man who had introduced the bill to give women the vote, was one of the main backers of this argument. Some stories attribute it to his young and supposedly beautiful wife, Julia Bright. Stories also circulated in later years that the whole thing had been a joke, that the lawmakers were mostly kidding and the entire idea went further than anyone had expected. That may be partly, or slightly true, but it goes against the fact that they spent a great deal of time debating the issue—hardly something the legislators would have done if they hadn’t taken it seriously. And finally, some lawmakers wanted to give the vote to women simply because it was the right thing to do. Bright was among this number, as well. The bill’s bumpy ride The bill passed the Council, where Bright had first introduced it, six votes to two. In the House, lawmakers tried and failed to attach various amendments.

Some of these were attempts to make the bill so unattractive to the other legislators that it would fail. One such amendment, which did fail, would have extended the vote to “all colored women and squaws.” The House did pass an amendment to raise the voting age for women from 18 to 21. The House then passed the woman suffrage bill seven votes to four, with one abstention. Governor Campbell took several days deciding what to do. He finally signed the bill into law Dec. 10, 1869. Esther Morris, first woman officeholder Later that month, back in South Pass City, Bright welcomed a couple of visitors into his home. These were John Morris and his wife, Esther Hobart Morris. John Morris later wrote a letter about the visit to The Revolution, a national magazine that championed women’s rights. Bright was glad to see the Morrises, John Morris wrote, as they had come to congratulate him and were among a very few people in South Pass City who approved votes for women. Early in 1870, Esther Morris was appointed justice of the peace, a kind of judge, becoming the first woman ever to hold a public office.

In 1870 and 1871, Amalia Post and other women served on juries in Laramie. In September 1870, women throughout the Territory finally got the chance to vote in Wyoming’s second election. As many as 1,000 women appear to have gone to the polls. To the disgust of the Democrats who had given them the vote, a great many voted Republican. A Republican was elected territorial representative to Congress. And the following year, 1871, a few Republicans were elected to the legislature. A repeal attempt The new legislature decided votes for women weren’t such a good idea after all, however, and passed a bill to repeal the 1869 law. To his credit, Gov. Campbell vetoed the repeal. The House came up with the two-thirds vote necessary to override his veto, but the Council fell one vote short. That left the new law standing, and it was never challenged again. All women in the United States did not win the right to vote for nearly 50 more years. Aftermath Meanwhile, Bright’s saloon business went bankrupt, and he and his family moved to Denver.

Many years later, in 1902, he was noticed in the audience at a national convention on women’s rights. Asked to speak about what had happened in Wyoming, he stood up and said the bill was not introduced “in fun.” He added that he supported the idea because he believed “his wife was as good as any man and better than convicts and idiots,” the Women’s Tribune reported. If he mentioned black people at this point, or used a more derogatory term, the paper did not repeat it. Perhaps the whole story of Wyoming’s choice to give women the vote shows that the right thing sometimes happens for a large, strange mix of reasons, most of them wrong. Or as John Morris wrote to The Revolution after his and Esther’s visit to William Bright, “It is a fact that all great reforms take place, not where they are most needed, but in places where opposition is weakest; and then they spread … .

Question: Which US state was the first to give women the vote?
Answer: Wyoming